Object

Representation ID: 1806

Received: 06/12/2021

Respondent: Persimmon Homes

Agent: RPS Group

The local assessment of housing need should be revisited to account for 8,550 jobs growth provided for by WMI and the potential employment land oversupply of 254-273 hectares in the District.

Events have moved on since the Strategic Growth Study (SGS) was published in 2018, with the Black Country’s need increasing and supply diminishing over a different timescale to the SGS’s preparation. The Black Country’s unmet need has not been appropriately factored into the housing requirement or the strategic locations in the SGS. The rural services and facilities audit fails to take into account Hilton Cross and ROF Featherstone in assessing access to employment. The spatial strategy fails to give sufficient consideration to co-locating jobs and housing, particularly in the Featherstone area. As the SGS may have underestimated unmet housing needs the employment-led area of search should be widened to include Featherstone.